SOMETIMES IN our overeagerness to dispense of the latest news or the latest finds, our tongues slip and provide snippets of information – pieces of evidence enough to draw a conclusion – that we would’ve otherwise not spilled.

“Gosh, there’s this album I’ve been meaning to tell you about. Here, to wish Giant Paulo all the best on his move abroad, I got him a copy, as well as a couple more for Iron Man and Green Lantern. It’s a tribute album to Hall & Oates! Arguably, the best album of covers that I’ve ever come across in years!”

“Boss, who is Hall & Oates?”

“What?! You don’t know who they are?!” I managed to snap back, short of screaming, “Are you telling me I’m that old?!”

The mention of “old” caused me to almost black out – think crimes of passion proportions – and I whipped out our Starbucks receipt and started to account how much to charge each for their drinks. Sacrilege towards music icons and a callous indifference to the topic of age and age gaps will cost you! Nobody would leave unscathed. Hahaha!

Just kiddin’. I guess that’s what you get – blank stares and sincere but insensitive “Who are they?” questions – when you choose to hang out with twenty-somethings.

The album that inadvertently trained the spotlight to my age is The Bird And The Bee’s Interpreting The Masters Volume I: A Tribute To Daryl Hall and John Oates. I first came across this duo (Inara George and Greg Kurstin) when they performed “I Can’t Go For That” on Ellen. I love that song – I’m all about the lyrics! – so I made a mental note to get their album. Then, I came across Jessica Zafra’s blog post about them, “Finally, a Hall & Oates revival.” Again, I made a note to look for it. The final straw that got me off my butt to start to really look for it was when 2ndavenue used “Private Eyes” on their The Mentalist trailer. “Private Eyes” is the favorite of mine, just a notch more than I like their signature “One On One”.

All Odyssey outlets have been out of copies. And I had already given up. But on the way to coffee from Giant Paulo’s farewell dinner, I passed by Astroplus and thought about just trying. Asking wouldn’t hurt. (Yes I know, Batman, that if only you could scream at me right now for not going to your fave store first!)

Astroplus still had stocks! And I bought all three of them! One for Giant Paulo who I know is such a music lover (I miss us singing KC Concepcion’s “Not Like The Movies” – I doing my best breathy vocals, you beatboxing. Hahaha!). One for Iron Man to pop into his player during those long drives. One for Green Lantern, also a music lover, an eclectic one I may add, just because.

(*The title of this blog post was inspired by a retweet I read on Ms. Daphne Oseña Paez’s twitter account @DaphneOP. I follow her.)

I AM A COMPLETE NEWSPAPER CLIPPINGS junkie. In this day and age when information travels through optical cables underground and underwater, beamed through satellites in dizzying speed, I still crave for the feel of paper between my fingers, not the click of a mouse, when I wake up in the morning.

So you see, I love newspapers. I still belong to the old school – okay, ancient – people who prefer to pay for the content that they read. Not that there’s anything wrong about totally relying on what’s made available free on the net.

For a couple of weekends now, I’ve devoted a huge chunk of my weekends to preserving my more-than-a-decade-old stash of newspaper clippings. By preserving, I don’t really mean slipping each clipping in a polyester-film folder with a sheet of alkaline-buffered paper as the backing. No.

I simply mean cutting each article to size – or cutting them into two to three parts – then pasting them on white bond paper. My specifics are quite simply sourced – legal sized (8½” x 13”) “substance 24” bond paper, and a heavy-duty glue stick that glides on smooth. Of course there’s the trusty cutter, and a lot of plastic rulers (I end up cutting their edges so I go through them quite fast).

My newspaper clippings run a gamut of feature subjects – wristwatches, wristwatch stores, restaurants, recipes, food, Teodoro “Teddyboy” L. Locsin, Jr., interviews, the “Playtime” features in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Margarita Araneta Fores, and Kris Aquino. Yes, Kris Aquino. But only her broadsheet interviews and stories about her advocacies – not the sleazy showbiz gossip people make up about her.

As for columnists, I’ve collected and continue to collect the works of Teodoro “Teddyboy” L. Locsin, Jr. (his “Free Fire” in TODAY), Kris Aquino (her “Kris & Tell” in the Philippine Daily Inquirer in the early 2000s), Celine R. Lopez (“From Coffee To Cocktails” – the one with the really nice essays), Winnie Collas Monsod, and Jessica Zafra (from “Twisted” in TODAY to “Emotional Weather Report” in the Philippine Star). For a while, I followed Scott R. Garceau. But not anymore.

"Kris and Tell" from a decade ago!

One clipping that made mention of the late former president's fresh corned beef. Just reading about it whets my appetite!

So far, I’ve finished working on Mr. Locsin’s. I’m contemplating on starting Jessica Zafra’s. But that’s quite a lot. I’m daunted to say the least.

Jessica Zafra from over a decade ago!

That's the look of a writer who seriously means business.

Part of my Jessica Zafra collection is this thick! Though, I want to clarify that I still buy the books.

THINKING OF what-might-have-beens is a bitch. And it doesn’t help that I have Lou Pardini on heavy rotation in my head, provoking me with the line that says I could very well be the “fool wondering what might have been.”

In early April, I seriously considered joining The Philippine Star’s “Star Lifestyle Journalism Contest 2010” with the theme: My Icon, My Hero. It was a no-brainer who I wanted to write about – Mr. Teodoro “Teddyboy” L. Locsin, Jr.

Mechanics to the Star Lifestyle Journalism Contest 2010

Not only have I admired the man for so many years now. Not only did his then column “Free Fire” serve as a formative influence to my own principles. Not only do I unequivocally declare his “Assignment” to have given us some of the finest hours on Philippine television.

I have actually written about him here already, that I felt I had a good start for a contest piece. But I had a swamped schedule (right now, I’m culling from memory a defining moment that happened to me last June 12. It was punctuated by the line, “But Tim, he has a full-time job!”). And I eventually yielded to self-doubt.

Finally, the 10 winning pieces were published in yesterday’s 24th anniversary edition, easily The Philippine Star’s thickest ever, together with features on 24 luminaries from diverse fields of specialization or calling. I believe it’s going to be a collector’s item so my propensity for contingencies kicked in – I asked my brother to get me another copy. Besides, I’m so looking forward to the weekend to work on clipping my favorites and putting them in an album. (I have a modest collection of clippings of Mr. Locsin, Jr.’s “Free Fire” from over a decade ago.)

From the 24 icons and heroes written about by 24 of the paper’s columnists, I have two favorites – Erwin Romulo’s piece on Kris Aquino, and Jessica Zafra’s on the Roger Federer.

I GOT this link from Ms. Jessica Zafra’s Blog, www.JessicaRulesTheUniverse.com. I Write Like is a statistical analysis tool which analyzes one’s word choice and writing style and compares them with those of famous writers.

The website says any text in English will do – like a blog post – as long as it’s at least a few paragraphs (for reliable results). I’ve made over 400 posts already on this blog. To analyze my own writing, I used something I’ve written even before I had discovered blogging. So it’s text that really is representative of how I write.

I’m not familiar with David Foster Wallace. Though going through the Wiki entry on him, I find that his life had a mix of success and tragedy – stuff that an E! True Hollywood Story is made of. Though I’m not hoping it to be mine.